


Secretaries Know Everything

by completelyhopeless



Category: DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2822933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony had a meeting with Bruce Wayne in Gotham. Pepper came along, but she wasn't about to stay for the meeting. Instead, she befriends Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon and may learn a secret or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secretaries Know Everything

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: _[Marvel/DC (any), any, one or more Marvel characters visit Gotham on a business trip and end up meeting someone from the Bat family](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/527327.html?thread=75845343#t75845343)_
> 
> Pepper stole the story and met three Batfamily members. I hope this qualifies.
> 
> I'm not really sure why the story turned out like this, and I can't begin to timeline it, though it would be before the Iron Man movies because Tony doesn't have a suit. And Dick is still Robin, plus Barbara is Batgirl.

* * *

“Mr. Stark. Good of you to come.”

“Is it?” Tony asked as he shook Bruce Wayne's hand. “I'm not sure it is. We are competitors, aren't we? Not that you have a full weapons development section or any government grants, but we have interests in common. In competition.”

“Here,” Pepper said, shaking her head as she passed him a protein bar and gave Mr. Wayne an apologetic smile. “I warned him not to come without eating, but he was in his workshop until the last minute and fell asleep on the plane.”

“No worries,” Wayne said with a smile that reminded Pepper of Tony, and not in any of the ways that she liked. “I'd be lost without Alfred to do the same for me. I almost always forget to eat.”

Pepper smiled back. “Sometimes I wish JARVIS was a real person who did the same for Tony.”

Tony grumbled around chewing on his bar. “JARVIS does plenty. He doesn't need to have a physical body to run my life. Though I prefer your body for running my life.”

Pepper's mouth thinned into a line. She didn't need this, not in front of Wayne. “Here you are. This is all the information you need for your meeting—”

Tony took it and started scrolling through it, muttering to himself as he did. She felt a headache coming on. Why had Tony wanted this meeting anyway? She knew he'd insisted on taking it, and she'd told him what a bad idea it was—even JARVIS had said it was, but Tony wouldn't listen.

“If you'll excuse me, I have a few things to see to while we're in Gotham,” she began, giving Tony a pointed look. He wanted this meeting, he could have it, but he was on his own for it.

“I hope I'll have a chance to see you again before you leave town,” Wayne told her, still smiling despite Tony's behavior.

“Me, too,” she said, making her escape while she still could. She shut the door behind her and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes.

Something thumped near her, and she jumped, looking over at the source of the noise.

“Sorry,” a teenage boy said, looking at her with a sheepish smile. “I didn't mean to startle you. I think I got everyone else around here used to me doing that, but you're just visiting. If I'd known you were, I wouldn't have done it, but this place has the most amazing ceilings.”

Pepper looked up. Wayne's office was on the top floor of his building, and not only was the waiting area's ceiling vaulted, it had some very unique rafters. “Oh. You must be Dick Grayson. Mr. Wayne's ward.”

“The circus freak,” he agreed, taking a bow and straightening up. “That would be me. First time I got up there, I just about gave Bruce's secretary a heart attack. He stood there trying not to smile.”

Pepper wasn't sure if she would have been the one having a heart attack or the one smiling. She liked this boy. He had a natural charm that was adorable in his age instead of dangerous in Tony's or Wayne's. “I'm afraid I would have been the one having a heart attack.”

“You're Stark's secretary?”

“That surprises you?”

“Oh, no,” he said, giving her another smile. “I just—Well, with the reputation Stark has and that Bruce has, is it wrong if I feel a bit sorry for you having to put up with them?”

“Not at all,” she said, smiling in return. She had almost known what she was getting into with Tony Stark, but having another one on her hands was almost too much for her to handle.

The door opened, and Tony poked his head out. “Pepper, I need you.”

“No, you don't,” she said, though she did sometimes wonder if he could tie his shoes without her. “You asked for this meeting. The only reason I'm here is because you wouldn't get on the plane without me. So if you don't mind, I think I'll take this nice young man here up on his offer of a ride.”

Dick's eyes widened slightly, but Pepper doubted that Tony noticed before Dick offered her his arm. “Of course. Anywhere you want to go, Miss Potts, just like I promised.”

“Thank you,” she told him, thinking it wasn't just Tony looking a little gobsmacked when she walked out with her new escort.

* * *

“Oh, I am a dead man.”

“Relax. Tony's attention span doesn't last long enough for him to remember what he said on the plane this morning. He won't be mad at you for helping me, and I don't think your guardian can be, either. I already told him I was leaving,” Pepper said, reaching for her phone when she thought she heard it beep.

“Not for that,” Dick said, grimacing. “I was supposed to meet Babs half-an-hour ago, and if I make her grade point average drop even a little, she'll be angry. We're lab partners, and I got Bruce's permission to do our work at one of the Wayne Corp labs, but I couldn't resist one trip across the ceiling, and oops.”

Pepper smiled. “It's fine. You don't have to take me anywhere. I only did that to prove a point to Tony. He tends to forget boundaries, and I have to remind him of them often.”

“Well, if you don't have anything going on, you could come with me and meet Barbara. She'd like you. The woman who really runs Stark Industries. She'd be thrilled to meet you.”

“You know something, Dick, I think you're too charming for your own good.”

He laughed. “I doubt it. Bruce has that. Me, I'm just a goofy kid who used to be in the circus.”

“And I doubt that,” Pepper told him. He fidgeted, looking uncomfortable for a moment, and then he shifted his feet and dug his keys out of his pocket.

“Would you rather drive? Because I have to warn you, I haven't had my license for that long.”

“I work for Tony Stark. You can't be worse than him.”

Dick laughed.

* * *

“Babs, I have someone for you to meet,” Dick called out as soon as he opened his car door, rushing over to the girl. Pepper was a bit surprised. His lab partner looked older than him, like she belonged in college and not with a boy who claimed to have just gotten his license.

He didn't fool Pepper—he knew how to drive and was comfortable enough doing it that she figured he'd done it for a lot longer than he'd been able to do it legally.

“This is Pepper. She runs Tony Stark. So she runs Stark Industries, and I remembered how you were talking about possible internships and you should meet her and—”

“Slow down, Dick,” Barbara said, an amused smile on her face. Pepper recognized that expression. She had worn it herself many times with Tony, though hers was usually a bit more exasperated. She crossed over to Pepper's door. “I'm Barbara Gordon. Dick really seems to like you.”

“She ran circles around Bruce and Tony Stark and neither of them realized it. What's not to like?” Dick asked, grinning.

* * *

Pepper might not have connected all the dots if she hadn't had two teenagers disappear on her right shortly before Tony called her to complain that Bruce Wayne had ditched him in the middle of their “bonding session.” Barbara's clumsy excuse about needing to meet her father and Dick insisting on taking her there even though she'd come in her own car and Pepper knew it was bad enough, but adding in Tony's call and the sudden city-wide alert, and she knew.

It helped that the video footage showed a girl Barbara's size with the same hair in the Batgirl costume and a boy with Dick's build and acrobatic skill as Robin. Connecting the dots between the two kids and the rough size of Bruce with what Pepper remembered of him, she figured she knew who Batman was as well.

Pepper filed that away in a special place in her mind, one that she did not allow anyone else to know about, filled with other things that no one could know about, most of which involved Tony Stark. She had no plans to let anyone know what she'd discovered, but Pepper Potts was not the sort of woman who let that kind of information go, either.


End file.
